Former Advisor to the Pope Sentenced – 6 years In Prison For Sex Crimes

It’s such a sorry thing to see those who were held in such highly esteemed positions fall so far from grace. There was a day when being a priest or a clergyman was highly revered. Their advice was sought out, and out of anyone in the community, it was just a given that they were trustworthy, especially in the company of our children. In more recent years, scandal after scandal has been reported in the halls of the Catholic church for sex crimes committed against children. Cardinal George Pell is one of those implicated, and he has now been convicted and sentenced to six years of prison time for his transgressions.

From Breitbart:

Cardinal George Pell was sentenced Tuesday to six years in prison for sexually abusing two choirboys in the 1990s, becoming the most senior Catholic official to be jailed for committing sex crimes against children.

Pell, 77, was convicted late last year by a Melbourne court on one charge of sexual penetration of a child under 16 years of age and four charges of committing an indecent act on children.

The ruling was only announced late last month due to a suppression order.

The former Vatican treasurer and former Papal advisor will spend three years and eight months behind bars before he is eligible for parol for the crimes of having orally raped one child and molested another, both 13 years old, in 1996, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Pell will also be registered for life as a sex offender.

Chief judge Petter Kidd said during sentencing that he was aware that Pell may not outlive his sentence.

“Facing jail at your age in these circumstances must be an awful state of affairs for you,” Kidd said, the Guardian reported.

Kidd said that his sentence must demonstrate the “grave consequences” of breaking the law and that since Pell maintained his innocence throughout the trial, it would not be reduced as he showed no evidence of “remorse or contrition.”

His crimes, Kidd said, displayed “staggering arrogance.”

In 1996, Pell, then the Archbishop of Melbourne, had discovered the two choirboys drinking sacramental wine, one of the abused children, now a 35-year-old man, told the jury during the trial last year.

Pell had told the boys that they were in trouble. Then he revealed himself to them and forced one of the boys to perform oral sex on him and then fonded the other, the complainant said.

Sometime later, the complainant said he was again attacked by Pell who pushed him against a wall, fondled his genitals and then walked away.

The other boy, who never filed a complaint against Pell, had died in 2014 from a heroin overdose.

“I think you did give thought or reflection to this offending and only reasonable inference from the brazenness of your reoffending is that you had a degree of confidence that the victims would not complain either immediately,” Kidd said during sentencing, which was broadcast throughout Australia live from a Melbourne country court.

Pell did not seek to silence the children, Kidd said, because he did not feel it was necessary, and his second transgression carried the mark of “physical aggression and venom.”

Kidd made clear that Pell was not being made a “scapegoat” for the Catholic Church’s failings and that he was being sentenced only for the crimes convicted by the jury.

Though not shortening his sentence, Judge Kidd said he did impose a shorter non-parole period “in recognition in particular of your age, so as ncrease the prospect of your living out the last part of your life in the community.”

Since 2016 we have heard rumors going around about a lot of sex-related scandals in the halls of government as well. It remains to be seen how much will come of the rumors, but if even a shred of what has been alluded to is true, it seems as if there will be so many exposed that the jails are going to get very crowded.

It’s a hard thing to watch these kinds of convictions being finalized. It’s tragic to see how those who have given in to their temptations are now finding themselves faced with such a bitter pill to swallow as they watch their lives crumble into a heap of rubble.

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